U.s. Must Finally Adopt A Realistic Policy Toward China

May 14, 1999|By Georgie Anne Geyer, Universal Press Syndicate.

WASHINGTON — If illusions had weight, there would have been earthquakes as they fell to Earth this last week from Brussels to Beijing to Belgrade. If utopian geopolitical dreams had gravity, they would by now be stuck helplessly all over the flowering bushes of this lovely spring city.

After the tragic accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade--and then after the "spontaneous" demonstrations by "enraged" Chinese against the U.S. Embassy in Beijing--nothing is ever going to be the same. We have seen, once again, the ancient true face of the "new China."

Indeed, the Beijing regime has unmasked itself as so remarkably in lock step with the worst Chinese communists of the past that one has to conclude that all the incredible economic progress of the largest country in the world has led to few political or psychological changes. It is the old communist "Big Lie," all over again.

In Beijing's government-organized demonstrations, even the religious groups marched in serried ranks reminiscent of the great buried stone warriors of Xian: first, the Buddhist monks, then the Tibetan monks, Taoists, Roman Catholics, Protestants and Muslims.

And by carefully orchestrating all of this, the Chinese government has shown, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that even well before the bombing, it had entered into a new period of virulent anti-Americanism.

This has been coming for a long time, but it has been covered up by the Clinton administration's persistence in believing that China is a new "strategic partner," which will suddenly drop all of its historical imperatives to rule Asia if only we pump in enough supposedly transformational technology and investment. That illusion can now no longer be sustained. Perhaps Robert Kagan, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace here, put it best when he wrote on The New York Times op-ed page after the week's events: "While administration officials continue to yearn for a `strategic partnership' with Beijing, China's leaders make no effort to conceal the fact they consider the United States an enemy--or more precisely the enemy. How else can one interpret the Chinese government's response to the bombing?"

One must keep in mind that there now exists in this brave new world of "instant communications" an information-deprived axis that stretches from Belgrade to Beijing and even to Moscow.

Most people know that, since 1989, through a total control of communications and the Serbians' minds, Slobodan Milosevic has mesmerized his people with dreams of being a super-race. But few realize that the Chinese government also has allowed nothing to be printed or broadcast about the Serbs' mass killing; they blame every "aggression" on NATO. That same information blackout has been present every day in Russia as well, although the firing of hard-line Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov may change that.

So, after seven years of Clintonesque utopian foreign policy toward these countries, instead of coming together with us, they are actually forming a new "paranoid bloc" (my term). It is now Moscow, Belgrade and Beijing against NATO and the Islamic world. But remember, the "new NATO" bloc is no longer only central and northern Europe and the United States. NATO and NATO wannabes today are 19 nations at the core, plus 25 related countries, plus a rapidly expanding NATO consciousness that reaches even into faraway central Asia and the Black Sea nations. NATO constitutes the most progressive parts of the world.

What next? Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who has been a prime proponent of engagement, now finds himself more critical. He said this week: "First of all, we should stop apologizing. We made clear it was an accident. But China is opposed to our policy in Yugoslavia--they think it threatens (their control of) their own minorities. And so China is making a bet that the U.S. will not engage them at any cost. No. We should not be that reckless. We should continue with our policies."

Meanwhile, as the demonstrations in Beijing were turned off midweek, the government said that a penitent United States must 1) abandon the idea of including Taiwan in the proposed development of a U.S.-backed defense umbrella in China; 2) approve China's bid to join the World Trade Organization immediately and, 3) dismiss allegations of the Chinese theft of American nuclear secrets.

The next problem is American, not Chinese. It is whether President Clinton will finally adopt a realistic policy toward China.

If he does not--if he still insists upon treating China as an equivalent of, say, Britain or Germany--then NATO could still lose the war in Kosovo. For if Clinton permits any final Kosovo negotiation to be under the UN Security Council, where China and Russia both have a veto, then he will have put this terrible conflict in the hands of the enemies of NATO's intentions and the conflict's solutions.

He who lives by the sword dies by the sword? Maybe. He who lives by the illusion dies by the illusion? Certainly.